Dipslaced: Votes summary and a reply
This is a follow up post to our displaced votes. I'd like to share some information and explain a couple of things I've received more than others.
Firstly, the overall support/development model.
Overwhelming majority (>50%) seems to be fine with patreon style support so we will continue sticking to this for the sake of simplicity.
The most number of participants (75%) also desire an arc style releases, so we will likely manage that. At this point its a bit hard to say how many arcs will be there and how big a single arc will be, as I still intend to keep Displaced a confined project which is going to have a clear start, progress and an ending. I'll go into details on how much overall is planned, probably at the point when first story arc will be released.
Now onto complainants. Yes, the overall response is fairly positive, which makes me happy, but I want to explain my position on the dubious topics in a clearer way.
Aside from technical stuff the rest of complainants come into one of 3 the categories:
You can't automate food
I have already stated how it's a deliberate decision and given how there's no time limit (or literally any bad effects from skipping time), having food automated would basically remove any point of food in first place and just make you gather hundreds of resources at no cost. Given how many complainants regarding this were there, that might actually be a solution. Maybe we will keep food cost strictly to hardcore difficulty just so it wouldn't get into the way of relaxed playing.
Arron is a dickhead
This one is also common and I can't quite argue, because he was written with that thought in mind. But on the other side, I feel like he might come off a bit more extreme than he actually is. That would obviously be my fault, so in my defense I can only promise, that he's the most obnoxious at the first few scenes, and it should get better. Also, I have a feel that he's being misunderstood often, which is not really surprising, but casts a shadow on him. Perhaps I should make a few corrections at the start to give a couple additional hints. But in attempt to slightly redeem him, I'll say: he does not really mean many of the things he says to others.
The game is not X
With X being: Strive; dark/realistic enough; having a female/selectable protag.
Not really sure how to comment on this, but yeah, apparently this is a complaint. The thing is, there's no thing which is literally for everyone, save for maybe oxygen. I'm sorry the Displaced is not exactly what you were looking for, but I hope it won't stop you from liking it.
I do hope by the time of first arc release you will have a greater insight on the story and character directions as I plan to include all of the important members of the group and some of their character arcs. For now I'll say, that the overall tone of the game will be light as now, but with occasional shift to more dramatic and emotional events.
Thank you for your attention and see you next time!
Comments (4)
After playing through it a second time I think you sort of achieved the direction you wanted to go with Arron. Of course he's sort of a dickhead, and somewhat of a jerk but we would have to keep in mind that he's a spoiled brat from the royalty. Also Rose keeps him in check. I guess what made me think of him as an ass is that it's only very briefly mentioned in the intro and we got to see the last of his 'jests' that eventually get's him cast out. A suggestion might be to list/show a few other things he has done before or in the time before he gets to the village. But what I can say I like the other characters really well and I'm excited to see what you have planned for the game! On a side note - The food mechanic is very interesting and a new take on the 'colony management' side and I guess with new areas / enemy types there'll be other foods and ways t get food. Overall, Keep it up!
Thank you, glad you appreciate it :)
I was one of the people who complained about automating food, and it's mainly not because of gameplay reasons (because for gameplay reasons it doesn't achieve it's objective: you can still technically sit in the village hoarding tons of resources by continuously firing and rehiring workers and selling what they bring you). I see it as incoherent from a storytelling prespective: if you are founding a settlement, water and food, in that order, are the first things you look for. If you don't have access to them, you don't found a settlement. If to found it you have to walk 40 years through a desert, you do that. And in this case, there is a forest: most trees can be boiled to make treebranch soup, if nothing else. There are rats, capture them and breed them for food, etc. There is no point in not having a food source if there is a source of anything else. You can force the player out of the village in other ways: make the surrounding hazardous to your settlers, for example. Not generating individual encounters, but making the workers take a set ammount of damage when they work depending on how long it has been since you went on a foray to clear the vermin. Obviously you can make some resources you need for crafting hunt only. And goint deeper, maybe some resources can only be farmed with tools you can only make from hunt only resources. Etc-
The part of rehiring workers if more of an oversight and isn't hard to fix. As for the setting, it's not that there's no food sources at all, it's just there's not enough to support a steady growth, hence why the settlement is mostly undesirable.